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ms. austen

i thought my first post after coming home would be about our trip. i even started said post yesterday. and yet, today, at this very moment, i need to write about something else.

i must preface this post by letting you know that i just finished watching "becoming jane". and to be quite honest i cried for a good portion of the movie. *spoiler alert* because i mean really, shouldn't jane austen, of all people, have had a happy ending?

but life doesn't work out that way, does it? good doesn't always come to the good, and bad doesn't always come to the bad. it's so incredibly difficult for me to watch something like that and recognize -- as most people would -- when something is meant to be, and yet, somehow it isn't. it just doesn't happen.

but life isn't a well-written narrative. life is not a classic work of fiction where all ends just as it should. while i know that movie producers took their creative licenses with this movie, my heart still hurts for jane austen. the writer of all of these great works only knew love for a short time. she never got the happy ending she wrote for so many other literary leading ladies.

it makes me stop and wonder -- what if she had married? would we have the same works of hers we have today? or would she have been too busy living her love story to write the story of so many others?

and yet, is that how it must be? must one woman's life and happiness be sacrificed so that many people after her would have the gifts she gave by her pen?

i can't help but wonder if her work persuasion was really about her own life. about the life she wished she'd had. if it was really about the love that eluded her. if she hoped that somewhere, deep down, the heart truly never forgets, and that somewhere, despite everything else she really was loved from afar by the one man she had truly loved as well. [it especially makes me wonder because tom lefoy {jane's beau} did end up getting married, but he named his eldest daughter jane.]

so often life doesn't seem to work how it's supposed to work. why is there so much heartbreak?

i wonder how often she cried for him. how long it took her to get over him - or if she ever really did. so often we don't get those things that our hearts long for. we ask why because life doesn't make sense [despite the practicalities and logical thinking skills we're taught in school. far too often life betrays logic].

after reading many classic books, and other works encompassing various time periods and cultures i often wonder about how many love stories had to be abandoned due to a lack of funds. it's so hard for me to understand. so hard for me to put myself into a mindset where marrying for love is not the way it happens in most cases - and marrying for money is seen as a good thing.

and yet, i honestly don't believe people are happier now. now that people can marry for love, or for money, or for a visa, or whatever they want. we humans always seem to find reasons to be discontent.

i happen to believe that is because we were not created for this world, and thus,